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It's an interesting play because the Dems do have enough votes to impeach Cheney -- but the Senate would never find him guilty by a 2/3rd majority. This is of course the same brilliant strategy that the dems have been using for the last 12 years in elections -- fighting and winning the meaningless battles, and losing the important ones -- which is why I despair for the 2008 election.

In addition, once this road is crossed -- impeaching for , and every time the president/vp is in office, and a different party has a majority in the senate and house, you'll see an impeachment. It's the same thing that happened once the line was crossed with judicial appointments. Partisian politics has made almost every parties' political victory a Pyrrhic one for the American people. We get the shaft, while the politicians get rich fighting each other. We need a 3rd party...

Partisan politics seem to get worse and worse every year. That being said, at least he is doing something. Some of it might be to get attention, but his politics in general have always struck me as more honest then most. I think he's well aware that he isn't going to be a mainstream candidate any time soon. He's WAY too far left for the country at this time. What he does do is make people think, and push the envelope a bit further. The polar opposite of someone like Delay or Gingrich that the Democrats need.

Then consensus would be needed to get ANYTHING done. I mean, it's not like we don't have enough laws already...this system could help curb the 'look at me' laws passed to make a politician look 'proactive' but which don't do anything really new.

You really really don't want that to happen. Most likely, U.S. politics will end up being just like France [wikipedia.org]'s, where street protests are a normal part of politics, and where extermists can get quite far (e.g. Le Pen). Worse, you could end up with politics like Italy [ft.com]'s or Israel's.

Where exactly did you study the political process? Street protests are used by groups that are in the minority to bring awareness and supporters to their cause. A lack of street protests means a suppression of the minority. The abortion issue will cause street protests forever, no matter which side wins, because the other side will always be pissed. Right now the pro-life people are in a pretty sharp minority (only 30-40% of our population), notice how much they protest?

"A lack of street protests can mean either one of two things: a very successful system where all issues that would result in street protests are solved within the legal process"

Perhaps you didn't read my post, that is impossible. There is no way an issue like abortion can be "solved". A large minority of our society will not be happy unless it's completely illegal, a small majority of our country will not be satisfied unless it's legal in most situations. There is no way that this (or many similar issues like it), will ever be "solved". The situation you describe would mean a legal system that can solve unsolvable problems, an impossibility, an absurdism.

I too am contantly amazed that anyone wants the incompetent boobs they elect to actually do anything. I alwasy for for the person I think will create the most gridlock so the government can't actually screw as much up!

What exactly is a centrist? The right has fought a successful campaign over the last 30 years or so to move the center to the right. What was once moderate left is now considered far left. What was moderate right is now considered centrist. What was far right is now right, and what was once considered bug-fuck insane is now simply far right.

The whole left right thing is a bit of a red herring anyway. I prefer to skip the shorthand and go straight to candidates' records on the issues that are important to me.

I'm not sure, it seems to me that what is right, and what has left, has turned 90 degrees. I used to be on the right, but now I think both parties are bug-fuck insane. The republicans seem to have gone totally fascist. Another 8 years of that shit and we're going back 200 years to a religious monarchy. The democrats are mostly the same, but don't especially like the religion side of things. I think they'll lead us to just a plain old bureacratic dictatorship, that eventually will collapse under several tons of BS.

No one is out there for personal freedom. No one is out there who can say that the job of the government is to protect citizens from both enemies abroad, and the domestic ones: primarily corporations, especially those with large legal budgets. Really none of the candidates are afraid of the citizens much anymore, we're just tools in a phony holy war of the inconsequential.

with the success of the right wing campaign to reclassify righ as center and center as left.... there are no candidates representing the actual left, which make up the majority of the population, hence low voter turnout.

maybe instead of allowing news pundits in the ivory tower to scare them off their populist positions, candidates for the left should plough forward and see what kind of interest they can develop in the 250+ million people who didn't vote in the last few elections because the only candidates to choose from were a corporate schill and a corporate schill who happens to be christian.

You nailed it. The political spectrum has been moving right but the social spectrum is moving left (gay marriage, medicinal pot,etc) and thus you have this tension, this sharp divide between red state and blue state.

The idea of a "red state" and a "blue state" is fallacious. Almost every county in the past presidential election broke right down the middle, except for a few counties in the heart of Kansas and Utah which were solidly red and some in California and New York that were solidly blue.

So that tells me that the divide is less between states and more between people. The red vs. blue idea is counterproductive, and is only peddled by talking-head pundits (for whom I have zero respect) to create conflict and thereby create a news story.

There is more to the Libertarian party then just the whole free market ideology. I am a Libertarian, but I even refer to the free market as absolutely stupid and almost unmanageable. You can still have libertarianism without a free market. What do I want as a Libertarian? Lower taxes, less government aid programs, protection of Bill of Rights (you cannot deny this has been assaulted by BOTH parties), protection of states' rights (sort of relates to the last one), and a general protection of civil liberties and rights.

At some point of our 230 year existence, we began to evaporate the states' rights for federal ones. It is impossible to deny that this is a LARGE country with varied demographics by region. Many things currently decided by federal laws, should have remained within the rights of the states, and this is what I support more than anything. As for a totally free market, it would probably never exist, but if our government seriously wants to keep up the song and dance like they are trying to enforce some sort of market regulation, I guess we can at least sit back and laugh. (I love AT&T as the prime example of how the government has no real control. Break them up and watch a "Baby Bell" buy back the others and eventually the parent company.)

At some point of our 230 year existence, we began to evaporate the states' rights for federal ones.

At four points, actually.

In the summer of 1787, when we ditched the Articles of Confederation and started working on the Constitution of the United States. You may not count this, but you should, because it created the framework for our Federal system.

The Civil War, when we decided that the Federal moral responsibility to abolish slavery outweighed the rights of states to institutionalize the ownership of people of a different race.

FDR's Presidency, when, first, national action was taken to redistribute our nation's wealth more evenly (TVA and Social Security are the most enduring examples of this), and, second, the nation mobilized and then fought in World War II.

LBJ's Presidency, when the Great Society expanded the social safety net to include such frivolities as "Medicare" and we enacted "The Civil Rights Act of 1964" and "The Voting Rights Act of 1965."

To crib from Sorkin, there are times when we're fifty states, and there are times when we're one country solving problems that require the pooling of resources.

As a native Charlestonian, the city that invented the State's rights argument, and a descendant of slave-owning Confederate cavalry veterans, I'm so glad the Federal government won the four points you've made. Extremely glad, otherwise I would not be anywhere near as secure in my liberties as I am now.

You see, State's rights is a load of crap. It's really about fiefdom, controlling interests in a particular state don't like the Feds coming in and telling them that they can't violate Federal law. The legal establishment of second class citizenry is a threat to the Constitution and to the peace, the last three points you make were solutions to this threat. You're outdated republican view of the state is unworkable, especially in a modern society with the infrastructure required to compete for the wealth necessary to defend any of our rights.

We legally and rightfully changed our form of government from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution. The Federalist Papers in support of the Constitution are considered to be the "finest treatise on government in existence", not the anti-Federalist Papers in support of the Articles.

At that point, we, as a free people, specifically abandoned the republican view of states that you refer too. It was not working and we needed something better, a "more perfect union".

The Civil War (and again, I was raised 2 miles from where the damn thing started) was an act of immoral rebellion against a legitimate authority. Advocacy of violent secession was not a defense of some inherent rights, it was a betrayal of the underpinnings of Anglo-Saxon Protestant beliefs and culture that formed this nation's laws and the rationale for the Revolution. The Civil War was a fraud perpetuated by the wealthy of the South upon the poor and middle class. The only honor that came out of the Civil War for the South was the same honor that every soldier who believes he is fighting for his family and home. There is no honor in claiming that states have rights that supersedes the Federal government or that they have sovereign status, because there is no integrity to the argument. If states had the right to secession, the Federal Constitution would have no power. It would be a suicidal clause that would make the institutional structure unworkable, that is why the Constitution concentrates more power centrally than the Articles did. South Carolina agreed and ratified the Constitution, there was no justification for secession or the violence that followed, they committed immoral rebellion.

LBJ's Presidency, when the Great Society expanded the social safety net to include such frivolities as "Medicare" and we enacted "The Civil Rights Act of 1964" and "The Voting Rights Act of 1965."

You are in support of this erosion of "states rights to terrorize its citizens" aren't you? Otherwise I'd have to say that you have a delusional and unobjective view of freedom. This is obviously cribbing from ol'Milty Friedman with the horror and shock that brought you the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. I hope you don't think Brown v Board was judicial activism too. The stupidity of the argument that racism is some personal moral issue vs an issue that affects the interests of the state is the acceptance of different classes of citizens. This is not a viable situation. We cannot have inequality before the law for any human, regardless of their circumstances. If a person legally falls under the jurisdiction of the United States, they must be given the same legal protections as any other citizen of the United States. If you do not live up to this, then you invite tyranny (this is why torture advocates must be purged from our government). After all, if you can legally separate someone who has not violated the rights of another for an accident of birth or a matter of conscience then no one is safe. These are two factors upon which the state must seek equality. We can never be free people if we can be denied wealth accumulation, access to markets or equality in civil rights

What, exactly, do you believe is the basis for all wealth? Wealth is only partially created through "voluntary exchange", as you put it. This is exactly the sort of near-sighted judgement that leads to myopic visions of Libertarian free market utopiae.

Wealth *is* zero sum. Wealth comes, ultimately, from the exploitation of natural resources, which are of finite quantity. Yes, you can build several economic layers on top of that, but ultimately, you've got to have a product in order to have a product to service. Wealth creation may be spread out, but it certainly doesn't equate with equal opportunity when you have the existence of a privileged class.

I, for one, am certainly not advocating socialism, so don't set that up as a straw man. Well-regulated capitalism is just fine with me. It's just that our government has fallen down on the "well-regulated" aspect.

Because of how wealth is created (through voluntary exchange), the truly free market is the most efficient method of wealth generation. A free market operates in pareto efficiency, the most efficient form a market can hope to attain. This means it operates at a level of 99.9999999999% efficiency (ten signifigant digits).

No, it doesn't. Your view of economics is not even close to correct. There are many cases where the free market is very far from optimal, and government intervention is necessary to make it efficient.

The first problem is information. We have laws against false advertisements, and requiring that certain information be included, because the free market can't function without them. The second problem is externalities. An externality is when someone does something which harms an uninvolved third party, without paying for that harm. The classic example (which you got wrong) is pollution. If dumping toxic waste into the river is legal, cars will be cheaper and factories will make more money, but the people who live near that river will have a serious problem.

But the real problem is simply _power_. Large corporations are amoral entities with vast amounts of power which they can and do use to steal natural resources, unfairly destroy smaller competitors, blackmail their enemies and, above all, secure even more power. A strong government is necessary because a small government wouldn't have the power to stand up to a multinational corporation, even if that corporation was committing felonies.

The libertarian dream is admirable, but naive. Instead of giving power back to the people, it transfers power to the rich - a small, unelected elite which answers to no one. I'd rather have a devil I can vote against.

Why are Libertarians insane? Because they willfully disregard any evidence that their simplistic theories will not and do not work in the real world. The free market is not magic and infallible. It is a complex system of feedback loops that does not posses any sort of true homeostasis and therefore needs external management in order to maintain its state of freedom.

Not all Libertarians are as "bug-fuck insane" as you're making them out to be; there is a clear line between Libertarianism and economic anarchism -- Libertarians generally advocate a form of government which creates as level a playing field as possible, and then lets individual actors do the rest; this is generally summed up by saying that it is OK for government to create a framework where individuals can make decisions on their own, but not to act redistributively. Although this would not allow for conventional anti-trust regulation in the conventional sense, their stance is -- and I think they have a very good point here -- much of the danger of monopolies and trusts isn't inherent in the monopoly itself, but in the accrual of power in a single organization which is then used to influence government and suppress competition; if you removed all the corporate welfare and protective legislation that large corporations have bought themselves, they would tend to be lumbering behemoths and, excepting some special cases which tend towards natural monopolies, generally aren't as competitive as they appear to be today.

There is a lot of debate within Libertarian organizations as to how those special cases should be treated, and setting aside orthodoxy, I think the vast majority of self-identified Libertarians would support some form of minimalist interventionism in order to counterbalance the distortive effects that some monopolies have had on the government, while the laws and welfare that they have purchased are repealed or dismantled.

In short, I think you're getting dangerously close to creating a straw man when you attempt to pigeonhole Libertarians so narrowly; like it or not, they're the closest thing that the United States has to a third political party, and their views are not nearly as simplistic as you seem to think they are.

Libertarians generally advocate a form of government which creates as level a playing field as possible, and then lets individual actors do the rest; this is generally summed up by saying that it is OK for government to create a framework where individuals can make decisions on their own, but not to act redistributively.

Well, the problem is that without acting redistributively, you simply can't create as level a playing field as possible. Take the inheritence tax, for example. Without the inheritence tax, you get economic dynasties where the child of a wealthy and powerful individual not only starts off with an advantage in education and political connections (that you can't really erase) but also with an entire foundation of wealth that an otherwise equally talented individual would not start with. In essence, the race is already lost. I've always been of the opinion that wealth should be earned, but a lack of inheritence tax allows for the existence of an upper class that has no need for work when they can simply let their money work for them by entrusting it to investment advisors. Most if not all Libertarians consider the Inheritence Tax to be an abomination, though it is widely considered outside of the American Right to be a necessary foundation for the creation of equality.

I think the vast majority of self-identified Libertarians would support some form of minimalist interventionism in order to counterbalance the distortive effects that some monopolies have had on the government, while the laws and welfare that they have purchased are repealed or dismantled.

The problem is that most Libertarians don't seem to believe that there's a problem with a monopoly having a distortive effect on the market or on consumers as long as they don't get the government to do them any special favors. I, too, would like to see less corporate influence on government, but until corporations are prohibited from or (by force of law) gain no profit from donating to the campaigns of politicians, you'll never see and end to special favors for industry. I find it very rare (i.e. I've never met) a Libertarian who does not consider the ability of the wealthy and powerful to spend their money as freely as they want on political donations to be a matter of their free speech rights, nor have I met a Libertarian who thinks that the idea of corporate personhood and the existence of the same free speech rights for corporations should both be abolished.

1. There's obviously no WMD in Iraq.2. Saddam Hussein is still an asshole.3. We've effectively contained him so he's not much of a threat.4. We may have to do something about him in the future, but now is not the right time.5. There's obviously no connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda.6. "I don't think our nation's military should be used for what's called nation building".7. You don't cut taxes by 1.5 trillion and then start a war.8. Let's deal with the important issues first (Afghanistan and al-Qaeda), but keep an eye on Iraq.

That's not the middle ground. That's the "leftist" stance on the Iraq War. Perhaps not far left (you're not advocating for the removal of the sanctions), but it's still a leftist stance in the US. The leftist stance on the war used to be a minority stance; now it's a majority stance.

The whole point is that to really be a "centrist", you'd need to be like the Neutrals in Futurama. There are very few people who actually take a "moderate" opinion on major issues. Rather, there are people who have a collection of stances which they believe in that don't simply match all of the stances of the stereotypical "left" or the stereotypical "right", but contradict the stances of other so-called "moderates". Appealing to the center, or to "moderates", is appealing to a largely mythical concept.

Umm. That's not a centrist. You've given almost the dictionary definition of a libertarian. Try the age-old political quiz [theadvocates.org].

A centrist beleives that government should control people and restrict their rights, just not completely. They believe that government should be big enough to do many unnecessary things, but it should strike a "balance" between liberty and socialism.

If you have a graph, where the x-axis is increasing personal freedom and the y-axis is increasing economic freedom, the libertarian is the furthest from the origin. A centrist would want a moderate amount of economic freedom and a moderate amount of personal freedom (for example, perhaps they have an agenda of being pro-life and anti-drugs, and want the government to control interest rates and feed the poor).

The Democrats are a far-right party by the standards of the rest of the world.

More accurately, at least by the standards of the developed West, the Democratic Party is mostly a center-right party and the Republican Party a far right party. The relatively exclusionary electoral system in the US that produces alienation and low turnouts tends to suppress participation mostly on the left (this follows the experience in most of the West, where more participation tends to pull the system to the Left more, and less pulls it to the Right) and skew the entire political spectrum to the Right; also, the US leans culturally more the Right than most of the West before that exclusion, perhaps in large part do to the degree of religiosity and particularly the uniquely strong cultural influence of Protestant Fundamentalism in the US.

That the US also has geographic distortions in its political system which tend to give more political power to regions that tend (overall) lean to more to the (for the US) Right, compared to those that lean, overall, more to the local Left combines with the other sources of distortion to produce a particularly right-leaning trend in government in the US.

On a related note, was Hitler a moderate simply because he was at war with both the capitalist democracies of the West and the communist dictatorship of the East?

Short answer: No, who your external enemies and friend are do not necessarily reflect the economic stance of your own country.

Long answer: Hitler was an economic moderate because National Socialism was a semi-rightist totalitarian system that shared control of the country between government officials and industry leaders. The economy was semi-planned, but much of the planning was done by government recognized monopolies and cartels instead of by the government itself. In addition, property was assumed in general to belong to the citizen instead of to the state. That last distinction is very important between leftist and rightist totalitarian economies and is one of the few places where they don't blur together much.

As for defining them by allies, note that the Nazis and the Communists were initially allies until they turned on each other, and a sizeable portion of the wealthy and of the intelligentsia of America in the late 30s were more sympathetic to Germany than to England. Hilter wrote quite glowingly of Americans in his writing, praising them and considering them as potential fearsome rivals. The clash of powers was more pragmatic than ideological until the war got started and the propoganda started up. History largely writes it as a war against an evil power that massacred Jews, but it got started more out of a fear of the balance of power.

I mean, what kind of nation are we that is allied with both Norway and Saudi Arabia?

This is one of the biggest problems that the democrats have had since, well as long as I can remember. The GP post was spot on. But add to this the fact that the Dems biggest issue is that they do things so directionless. Actions for the sake of actions, without really having a plan how to make them go or what to do once they have gotten there. You look at the republicans, their biggest strength is the fact that they can come together and have a goal, as a whole party (can you say "Contract with America"?) and then work as a group to make it happen. The Dems strike me more as just a bunch of guys who are on the same team, but seem oblivious to each other.

What will kill this is that it has no legs. It has no public support. I mean, if Kucinich really wanted to give this a shot, he and the Dems should have made a stink about everything they are going after with the specific point of getting this very well talked about in the public. Let the masses get a bit angry about it, and better yet get the feeling of an action such as this. If it has some merit, it will start to gain support. THEN, once it really has legs, go after it full force where people will KNOW that this is really going on.

Hell, right now, hitting the Times front page - NOTHING, which means that this move is pointless. Without the public talking about this, you might as well not even try it.

The problem isn't that the general public isn't supporting it. The problem is the mainstream media can's say the word "impeachment" without almost laughing. They talk about it like it's a silly passing throught. If they took it seriously they'd report it seriously and discuss it. The general public would easily support it being Cheney is hated even more than Bush. But most of the public doesn't know anyone is actually working towards impeachment hearings while in fact a lot of work has been going on across the country. The mainstream media needs to properly report it.

The problem is that nobody takes Kucinich seriously, even within his own party. He's maybe not quite as ridiculous as Ralph Nader or Jesse Jackson on the list of "hopeless ideologues who continually run for President," but he's definitely on that list. Hell, he gets regularly ridiculed by Jon Stewart, who is practically the mainstream Democratic party's mouthpiece on national television. He is, in general, a loose cannon, and I doubt that earns him many friends on either side of the aisle. (Well, some Republicans might secretly like him just because of his entertainment value, and because he creates things they can point at and use to condemn Democrats in general with; e.g. his proposals to ban handguns make for great NRA campaign fodder.)

None of the real players in Congress are going to touch this, because they don't want to be associated with him. He's practically famous for introducing feel-good bills with no cosponsors, that get him a little media attention and then get tossed in the circular file in committee.

Hell, right now, hitting the Times front page - NOTHING, which means that this move is pointless. Without the public talking about this, you might as well not even try it.

This is the question the rest of us are asking: what will it take for the American people to wake up?

Here in Canada we are having a major flap about Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan following NATO protocols for the war there and turning their POWs over to Afghan forces, in possible violation of the Geneva Conventions and international treaties on torture. There's some evidence of incompetence in the government's handling of the problem, but so far little or no evidence of wilful wrongdoing. And yet the Minister of Defence is likely to be out on his ear over it, and it could well be a significant issue in the next election.

In the U.S. you have a government that has suspended habeas corpus, lied to the public for the purpose of invading a peaceful nation that had no ability to do you any harm, and continues to spend your children and grandchildren into poverty.

No, it doesn't. It's actually far better than it used to be, back when the sitting Vice President hired a newspaperman to slander the sitting President, just because they were from different parties. Thomas Jefferson not only hired James Callendar to lie about John Adams, he himself lied about Adams' plan to peacefully end the Quasi-War with France -- even though he agreed with Adams' plan! -- in order to make the plan fail, just so he could have a better chance to win the presidency himself.

Of course, some of this was after Adams' party, the Federalists, voted to make it illegal for Jefferson's party, the Democrat-Republicans, to criticize the Federalists. And people went to jail for it.

Whereas Adams merely jailed or deported his opponents without trial, while gangs of his supporters smashed up rival presses and beat the pressmen.

"Whereas"? Apparently you missed the part where I made specific reference to the Sedition Act?

And as to deporation, no, that didn't happen. You should know more about your own ancestor: he never deported anyone under the Alien Acts.

Still, in the main I think Adams - my ancestor - and his supporters were guilty of the greater sins.

I can't agree in re Adams. Adams did not actually use the Alien Acts, and all the acts were pushed on him by Hamilton and the Federalists: he basically agreed to them because he needed their support for his policy in the war, and so on. That's not to say he thought them entirely bad ideas, of course, I am just saying that Adams would not have done that on his own, as he was the one person at the time (apart from Washington, now in retirement) who wanted to rise above partisanship.

His supporters, yes, were worse than what Jefferson did in some ways, although as bad as the Sedition Act was, I still find what Jefferson did more offensive. Not because it was actually worse, but because politicians still do it today -- that is, sacrifice national security for politics, attacking policies for justice peace that you agree with, merely in order to get political advantage -- whereas there are no more Sedition Acts. At least we've learned from the mistakes of the Federalists.

We have them. Plenty of them. Just having them isn't enough if people don't vote for them. Spread the word, get people to look beyond the Republicrats, and then we have a chance to really shake things up.

Is it just me, or do all the third parties seem a bit too extremist to be taken seriously? They've all got something just completely unworkable, like a $16/hr minimum wage or privatizing all roads and education.

I'm not sure the solution is another party. I think the solution is a fundamental change to our government that reduces the necessity of parties. Like instant runoff voting.

Also, something needs to be done about gerrymandering. I don't have the exact specifics, but 90-something percent of House

I've been preaching anti-gerrymandering for years. If there is ONE problem you had point to as truly fundamental, that's it. Here in California we have term limits on state offices, but the way the districts are drawn, you just get another extremist when the previous extremist has to leave.

We had a ballot initiative to change the redistricting process, but people are so stupid that voted against it. From what I gathered after the election, it was one of those initiatives people voted against because they didn't understand it, or they turned off their mind and listened to whatever ideological sewage source they favor.

Also, the Big Government groups and unions ran their typical "this proposition will eat your children and torture your pets" types of ads complete with ominous music. For fuck's sake you;d think society would have evolved an immunity to that crap by now. It's constantly parodied and made fun of, but droves still fall for it like brainless lemmings.

Is it any wonder I'm a total misanthrope?:-) Seriously, I consider any other view on humanity to be hopelessly ignorant.

I find less than 1 in 10 people even know what gerrymandering is. If anyone has a solution to stupid, ignorant voters coupled with evil politicians, I'd like to hear it, cuz I'm out of ideas.

I looked up gerrymandering just to make sure it means what I thought it means. I found this very interesting and humorous...

ORIGIN early 19th cent.: from the name of Governor Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts + salamander , from the supposed similarity between a salamander and the shape of a new voting district on a map drawn when he was in office (1812), the creation of which was felt to favor his party: the map (with claws, wings, and fangs added), was published in the Boston Weekly Messenger, with the tit

It isn't just you. I also have to agree, they all run on way out their platforms. You forgot walling off the border.Another problem is that they are currently seen as nothing more than extreme versions of our current 2 parties. And then we had elections recently where they were seen as taking away votes from candidates that had a chance/might have won.

I think more parties would really help. Just look at France where they had 5 candidates for their Presidency. It gives more options and better representation of the people.

What the 3rd Parties need to do is be smart about making inroads. Don't go after the Presidency right off the bat, it is a waste of money and energy. Work in roads in more local government and at the congressional level. Once the party has good support, THEN start making a run at the Presidency with viable candidates. Eventually that would help them break through.

The problem is that our simple-majority, winner-take-all electoral system pretty much guarantees that there will only be two parties. If you were interested in seeing a conservative agenda in 1992, and you voted for Ross Perot, it was almost as bad as voting for Clinton. There was no way that Ross Perot could get enough votes to win, and all you were doing was taking your vote away from Bush Sr., who would more likely govern the way you'd want to see. The same thing happened with Ralph Nader voters in 2000.

I'd like to see primaries be up or down for every candidate, or vote for up to your top 10, and no party ballots, and all states vote the same day. Then instead of getting candidates fighting for the extremist positions within their parties' fringe to cobble together enough votes to win the primary, several or most of the candidates will be trying to go to the middle and trying to pick and choose issues from both sides of the political spectrum to pick up support from more than half of the voting public.

Gerrymandering is no doubt a very serious problem, especially in states like Texas, California, and Ohio. It is interesting to note that of the three examples I just gave, one is a red state, another a blue state, and the third a swing state, so everyone is doing it.However, a big part of the reason that so few house races are close is because large swaths of the country vote the same. It's a fact of life that a Dem isn't going to be elected to the house in Nebraska unless he's a football player or someth

A change to the voting method might be a good idea, but not instant runoff.

It's easy to demonstrate mathematically, and easy to see in the places that have implemented IRV, that IRV doesn't reduce the political value of parties, nor does it effectively enable more than two parties to compete or allow voters to safely choose their preferred party rather than one of the big two. As soon as a third party gains enough votes to threaten one of the major parties, voters risk putting the major party candidate they hate most in office if they vote for the the third-party candidate.

To see intuitively how that happens, you just need to note that the rising third party will draw its support from the ranks of the major party that is most similar to it, thus effectively strengthening the major party that is most different from it. Yes, voters who vote will the third party will rank the closer major party as their second choice, but if the third party gains enough power, it will knock this major party out of the running in the first round, then lose in the instant runoff to the other major party.

What IRV does do is allow third parties to rise in power and prominence to the point that they can have a say in the debate, even though it doesn't allow them to actually win. That's a good thing, but the effect is limited by the fact that the third party is unlikely ever to win unless it can so thoroughly defeat the more similar of the major parties that it effectively becomes one of the two top parties. And during the transition era, from third party to major party, it strengthens the major party most different from it.

But assuming we could muster the political will to change the system, there are options other than IRV that don't suffer these weaknesses. The best known voting methods use the Condorcet pairwise evaluation method, and it can be shown mathematically that those methods do an excellent job of reflecting voter will in elections. Condorcet methods can even satisfy a slightly-weakened form of Arrow's Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives axiom, which means that if you can accept that weakening of IIA, they're perfect voting systems.

The downside to pairwise evaluation is that while it's actually straightforward to understand and implement (simpler, in fact, than IRV!), it's conceptually complex. IMO, the best of all possible options is also the very simplest: Approval voting. In approval voting, you have a list of candidates and you mark all you find acceptable. Whoever gets the most marks wins. In some formulations if no candidate gets at least 50% approval then the election must be run again with a new slate, but that's optional. The weakness of approval voting is that it doesn't allow voters to rank their preferences, so there's information that is lost. The strengths are that approval voting does a perfect job of reflecting the information it is given, without any ambiguities or paradoxes; does not support a two-party system; does not penalize individuals for supporting other parties; and is dead simple to understand.

The other approach that seems to work reasonably well for empowering more parties is the proportional representation system. The downside to that is that it means you are truly voting for a party rather than for a person, and I and many other Americans prefer to vote for the man, not the party (excepting where they both suck, which is increasingly the norm).

I can't remember the details, but IIRC somone within the past few years has enumerated seven or so desired properties of elections, and proved formally that none of the proposed election schemes satisfies all seven of them.

You're talking about Arrow's Impossibility Theorem, first published in 1950, and there are five axioms, not seven. One of them is the Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Criterion that I mentioned in my previous post, and it's the only one that pairwise evaluation fails to meet. However, many people (including me) think that IIAC is too strong, and that the Local Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives Criterion is adequate. This local version basically says that the method is still immune to changes in outcome when new candidates are added that don't end up creating or modifying a cyclical preference (where more people like A than B, and more like B than C, and more like C than A). Condorcet methods satisfy LIIAC.

Until someone comes up with a new idea, our basic choice is which of the desired properties do we want to violate.

That also assumes that the specified desired properties are in fact the ones we want. I think Arrow's axioms make a lot of sense, and that what his impossibility theorem points out is that there can arise situations where the populace fundamentally cannot agree, in which cases there can be no system that chooses the "correct" winner because there is no such thing. In those cases, a good method needs to have a deterministic and fair way of picking from among the cyclical preference, and that's the best you can possibly do.

Pairwise evaluation with Schwartz Sequential Dropping satisfies all of Arrow's requirements except IIAC, and satisfies LIIAC, meaning it handles perfectly all situations except the paradoxical one, and it provides a sensible heuristic for deciding in the paradoxical case. That seems to be about as good as you can possibly get, and it's vastly better than majority rules or IRV.

One -- If you can't win, you still have to do it. You cannot let crimes go, even if you cannot succeed in convicting. The problem is not this president/VP. The problem is the next one. To not impeach is to say "if the congress isn't dominated by the other house, you can do anything you want."

Two -- Cheny's not the target. Cheney's going to have to defend himself, and his interactions with the president will come out. It's at least possible that real solid evidence against the president will emerge.

This isn't stupid, it's both the right thing to do, and may help land the big one.

Two -- Cheny's not the target. Cheney's going to have to defend himself, and his interactions with the president will come out. It's at least possible that real solid evidence against the president will emerge.

Tha'ts it, in a nutshell. Impeachent proceedings are the only way that the Bush administration can be forced to testify under oath.

I think Kucinich is not only headhunting, he's hunting for truth... where that truth leads is anyone's guess.

To blame the Dems (not that you did) for politicization of impeachment is a bit off... the administration and their allies can cry foul all they want, but it seems to me that Bush & Co have been acting like they have a get-out-of-jail free card simply because Clinton was impeached. Not only that, but if there were not impeachable actions taken, it would be a moot point -- so any finger-pointing needs to be directed at the administration, not it's critics.

The OP should remember that it's not just the right, but the duty, of the public (and their representatives) to question elected officials.

What evidence do you have that Bush is a man of honor? Because he professes to be religious? I'm sorry, but his record, both before and after becoming president, show him to be a callous opportunist with delusions of grandeur. The man thinks God speaks directly to him.

He has done everything he can to subvert the intent of our constitution. He has appointed people who call the most important document in our country a mere piece of paper.

He and his crew are bandits. They have come to power to sack the treasury, transferring as much cash to their cronies as possible. The situation is so bad that one risks sounding slightly insane even talking about it honestly.

Cheney, the man who told someone, on record, to fuck off, is "quiet, calm, collected, well spoken, and brilliant?" I understand we all have differences of opinion, but that is like calling white black. The crew of pirates and thugs running the White House have demonstrated that they will throw absolutely anyone under the bus for the smallest of reasons.

I'm sorry that we have such different viewpoints and I don't wish to offend, but you should know that the majority of Americans feel more like I do than like you do. We're tired of these thieves and crooks bending us over the barrel. No punishment is too great for these scoundrels.

Look at it this way, if Clinton's impeachment was justified, then Bush certainly should have been impeached the first time he got somebody getting killed or wasted a billion dollars - and both of those things have now happened thousands of times over.

Bush has one strong defense though; all his cards were out on the table in 04, yet he still won the election. The American people have to take responsibility for that.

True in a way, but they unfortunately go so far as to disregard the need for checks and balances in massive inequalities of private power. Libertarians are simply under the delusion that a perfect free-market system is "fair" and allows anyone with enough gumption to rise to the top and ignores the inherent interest of those with financial clout in tilting the system to be as biased in favor of their offspring as possible. Basically, Libertarians only care about your freedom from government and your freed

No, we don't. We need to get rid of all parties. The American political system was not built for parties. If you read the Federalist papers, and other writings, the founders where very weary of parties, or 'factions'. Specifically in Federalist Paper number 10 where Madison declares that the system of checks and balances set up in the Constitution is meant to limit the power of factions to rule of the majority, giving rise to wait has been describe as tyranny of the minority.

Get rid of parties and you will get rid of a good deal of the crap that has come into the Republic.

"The American political system was not built for parties... the founders where very weary of parties"

The American political system, however unintentionally, was de facto built for two parties. However weary the founder were of parties, they did institute a system that creates the perfect environment for two parties. It's the natural outcome when you combine a simple-majority, winner-take-all system with human nature. People naturally form groups of all kinds. You can't prevent political parties from forming without throwing out our rights of free speech and free association. Because a simple-majority election means that any 3rd party candidate is a throw-away vote, we now have a 2 party system.

If we want more than two parties, we have to adopt one of the electoral systems found elsewhere in the world, where 3rd parties have actually won seats. If we want no parties, well, we have to think of a new system and try it out, see if it works. Wash, rinse, repeat.

As wary as Madison was of parties, he failed to understand two fundamental things.First, parties are inevitable. From an economic standpoint, they represent a pooling of resources that is more efficient for campaigning than individual candidates all going it alone. From a social standpoint, they are the result of likeminded individuals coming together for the same goals -- political bent in many ways is tied strongly enough to personality types and the background of your upbringing that it was inevitable

Uh. Lying under oath is a pretty serious offense. I'd be more concerned if a President *wasn't* impeached for an accusation like that with good evidence behind it. It doesn't matter which political party is involved.

Bill Clinton was not impeached over a BJ. He was impeached for "The charges were perjury and obstruction of justice, arising from the Lewinsky scandal."

So if you lie about something that isn't anyone's business regarding the behavior of two consenting adults, then it's an impeachable offense. On the other hand, if you lie about matters of improper squandering of our nation's lives and treasure, you're just being persecuted for political gain?

Something any one of us would do jail time for.

No. It's just not true. You couldn't find a prosecutor in this country who would prosecute either of us for lying about a BJ unless there were some ulterior motive behind it. And you wouldn't find an honest judge who would entertain such arguments.

Funny how in common law, most people don't apply charges of perjury to questions about an individuals sex life, because most people lie about that stuff, even under oath, especially in America. It sure as hell wasn't a relevant question based on the damn topic at hand.

The whole thing was practically the definition of a "perjury trap", following from a grand jury fishing expedition that lasted two terms and turned up not one single illegality aside from one it manufactured itself. Vintage republican dirty tricks.

It's an interesting play because the Dems do have enough votes to impeach Cheney -- but the Senate would never find him guilty by a 2/3rd majority.

Maybe that's why Kucinich can't find any co-sponsors. Not one.

This is of course the same brilliant strategy that the dems have been using for the last 12 years in elections -- fighting and winning the meaningless battles, and losing the important ones -- which is why I despair for the 2008 election.

No, this is Kucinich's brilliant strategy, not the Dems. It's been working for Kucinich though, he keeps getting re-elected. Not that the Dems don't have a record of dropping the ball, and not that the media doesn't play Steno Sue for the GOP enough, but why the hell would the actions of Representative Kucinich make you despair? He's been doing this crap for years, sometimes people agree with him, sometimes they roll their eyes. When he can't get any co-sponsors, they're rolling their eyes.

In addition, once this road is crossed -- impeaching for , and every time the president/vp is in office, and a different party has a majority in the senate and house, you'll see an impeachment. It's the same thing that happened once the line was crossed with judicial appointments.

Personally, I think Cheney and Bush have done more than enough to be impeached. Between the Abramoff corruption, fraudulently pursuing a war, the aftermath of Katrina, the US Attorney scandal and outing a CIA agent, the Federalist Papers make it clear that these two meet the criteria. Politically, I don't believe it's feasible right now, nor would it be well timed, given the number of investigations that are currently underway. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if during the course or after some of these investigations finish up that it became more politically feasible. There's a year till the primaries are done, there may be a lot of incumbents that need to distance themselves from this administration even more.

Partisian politics has made almost every parties' political victory a Pyrrhic one for the American people.

The American people wouldn't know objectivity if it slapped them in the face. BTW, what is this supposed to mean? The Dems political victory in October finally started to clamp down on the obscene amount of fraud and corruption after 6 years of a Rubber Stamp Congress.

We get the shaft, while the politicians get rich fighting each other. We need a 3rd party...

Dude, lay off the bong and get out of your dorm room. We get the shaft, because we don't fucking organize. Everybody loves to sit and whine about what's fucking wrong with politics, but the vast majority of you don't meaningfully participate. When is the last time you actually went to a Dem or GOP party meeting? You know, the one's where they plan and talk about who they're going to support and what they're going to do to get people elected. Every political meeting I attend, it's the same group of people, every rally, every candidate meeting, every fund raiser. Political power is simply laying there for you to grab, but very few people actually are willing to put in the work it takes to make the changes you want. This is not some new uncharted territory we're in, people have been successfully changing things around this place for the past 200 years. Really it would be hard to make this any easier, especially for WASPs.

If you don't like that the Democrats keep screwing up, then go take over your local Democratic Party. If you think you know better and you weren't around to mention that when it mattered, what use is your knowledge?

Finally, does Kucinich this this will help him get elected President?No. But it will raise him money for his re-election campaign and maybe he naively believes it will get the ball rolling or something. Whatever, I have to go roll my eyes now.

Have you even seen a daily newspaper in the past year? This isn't about partisan politics. This is about lying to get us into a war. If our leaders are being manipulated, democracy fails. Just because the Democrats are impeaching a Republican doesn't mean they are wrong.

"It's an interesting play because the Dems do have enough votes to impeach Cheney -- but the Senate would never find him guilty by a 2/3rd majority. This is of course the same brilliant strategy that the dems have been using for the last 12 years [...]"

It's worth noting that Mr. Kucinich ain't exactly part of the Democratic leadership. He's as far off the Democratic reservation as Ron Paul is off the Republican reservation. Whether this reflects prudence or cowardice among the leadership is left as an exercise for the reader.

"Finally, does Kucinich this this will help him get elected President?"

He's playing to his national base, which is solidly anti-war* and pro-impeachment. This action may not be sufficient for him to win the Presidency, but it is necessary for him to do this to have any chance at all.

[*: It's worth noting also that Kucinich has been against this war right from the start. And if I recall correctly, he's one of a very, very small number of people to have voted against the mis-named patriot act.]

In addition, once this road is crossed -- impeaching for , and every time the president/vp is in office, and a different party has a majority in the senate and house, you'll see an impeachment.

Fine with me, I wish they would impeach more often, regardless of party. Even if it does consume a lot of government time, money, and public attention, the overall effect of regularly dragging our politicians through the coals for their misdeeds is priceless.

Dennis Kucinich has more credibility than the whole white house put together. What the hell are you talking about? He's the only one who didn't have to completely switch loyalties on Iraq, he voted against the patriot act before putting it down was cool -- that's just the slightest beginning, I will leave it at that to avoid a flame war here..

But bottom line, check your facts, and his voting record. You owe an apology.

Perhaps Mr. Kucinich's altruism would be a little less suspect if he wasn't simultaneously running for president himself?

I'm not saying that he's not doing this for the very best of motives, but if one begins by presuming a purely malignant motivation for whatever Cheney's done, it would then be naked partisanship to assume anything but an equally malignant motivation for other politicians, no?

The original announcement was to be Tuesday at noon.Cheney went to the hospital for a knee-blood-clot "emergency" in the morning.So, Kucinich delayed it until 5 pm when it was obvious there was no emergency with Cheney's health.

Now that is an impeachment worth reading. The synopsis alone is a solid piece of attack.

Let's see if your congresscritters have enough spine left to do follow the facts. Though I fear we will soon find out how much money Haliburton is willing to throw around in order to keep their sock puppet in office.

I read the impeachment summary too, and liked it. But I don't think this will go anywhere. I'm jaded. I remember when this news came out, slashdotted in the NY Times I think, well before the 2004 presidential election. I remember thinking that this was an impeachable offense, and telling other conservative friends and family members about it. They did not believe me, and/or they didn't think it was really that bad. At least it wasn't nearly as bad in their opinions as the accusations in "Unfit for Com

I've been following this story since last week when the plan was leaked and then through Wednesday's postponement due to concerns about Cheney's physical status and through yesterday's news conference. What blew me away was the total lack of coverage it was getting in any press. In particular NPR really made me feel let down. I listened to Morning Edition and All Things Considered non-stop for days and did not even hear the slightest mention of this while I sat through literally hours of interviews with neocon assholes like freaking William Kristol.
What a sad indictment of what has become of the broadcast media. The above posts that mention the re-alignment of the "center" way off to the right is clearly evidenced by this example. NPR has no time to even mention the beinning of an impeachment of Cheney but, on the other hand, there's plenty of time for a pleasant chuckling interview with Billy Kristol on the brighter side of McCane's chances on this so-called left leaning media outlet.

Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003

"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security."
- Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
- President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction."
- Madeline Albright, Feb 1, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."Letter to President Clinton.
- (D) Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, others, Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998

"Hussein has... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies."
- Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999

"We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and th! e means of delivering them."
- Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002

"We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power."
- Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002

"We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction."
- Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002

"The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam H

Your attempt at false equivocation is completely dishonest. The Democrats have used a strategy of containment since Clinton was elected in 1992. It worked, there were no WMD to be found. Attempting to equivocate the fraudulent rush to war with a reasoned effort to contain a known danger is bs. Are you seriously going to argue that the interests of the United States have been served by the actions of this administration? And what freedoms or other traditions are Conservatives conserving if it is ok for the government to use my tax dollars to lie to me? How are the claims of the Bush administration not fraudulent? They were the ones advocating for war, they were the ones making the claims that a change in the course of action must be taken. Ineffective defense against fraud might lose you an election, but it is not grounds for impeachment, commission of said fraud is. The Democrats gave up their responsibility to criticize unsound evidence, but in the light of the fact that they were the minority party and could not win in either the House or the Senate their political expediency and deferment to a extremely popular president during an election season is reasonable. However, the Democrats sin was accepting the evidence as presented by the administration. Since then, they have repeatedly (except for Hillary) stated that they should not have trusted the Administration's claims and that doing so was a mistake. Again, all of the quotes you have about Iraq possessing WMD from 02/03 are based on information promoted by the White House that had no integrity. Quotes before then are based on a strategy of containment, not invasion.

Show me the evidence from an actual intelligence agency that says Saddam had weapons in 2002 or 2003, hell anytime after 1998. Other than the rockets that exceeded the allowed range (which were destroyed before the war by inspectors and had no WMD warheads), Iraq possessed no capabilities to threaten the US or it's neighbors. The Democratic strategy of containment was working until Bush decided it wasn't good enough for his delusions. It's the same thing in N Korea, the !Clinton policy of the Bush Administration has managed in 2007 to get the same agreement Clinton got in 1995, but now Pyongyang has a couple more warheads it can sell to real terrorists. How did Bush's actions advance the interest of the United States? Why did we invade Iraq? To what purpose are our soldiers and treasure being spent?

I'd really like someone to show me a person with actual intelligence credentials that believes invading Iraq was a good idea. Defectors provided by "heroes in error" over at the INC don't count, they have been exposed as frauds. Plagiarized thesis don't count either. Show me the CIA approved intelligence, show me the mid-level analysts who actually believed Saddam was capable of building nukes, would in a million years team up with Al Qaeda or provide them with WMD or would be stupid enough to attack the US with the amount of US military power already pointed at him.

I want something that didn't come out of the the White House Iraq Group, the INC, the Office of Special Plans @ the Pentagon and that wasn't a delusion with no evidence (Atta in Prague). I seriously challenge you to come up with something.

What Bush and Cheney said:

DICK CHENEY: (Speech to the VFW 8/26/02) Many of us are convinced that Saddam Hussein will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon.

DICK CHENEY: (Speech to the VFW 8/26/02) But we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

DICK CHENEY (MEET THE PRESS NBC 9/8/02): It's now public that in fact he has been seeking to acquire and we have been able to intercept to prevent him from acquiring through this particular channel the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge and the centrifuge is required to take low grade uranium and enhance it into highly enriched uranium which is what you have to have in order to build a bomb."

Let's look at the articles objectively (if that's even possible). Did Cheney commit any crimes, according to Kucinich? Note that lying in a political speech is not a crime (nearly every politician in the country would be behind bars if it were). Neither is lying to Congress, unless it's under oath, and we know how fervently the Bush Administration opposes testifying under oath. It's also not a crime to break a solemn promise, like the oath of office an elected official takes. These may be reasons not to reelect somebody (except that America did), but they're not crimes.

Article II: Cheney lied about a connection between Iraq and al Qaeda. But again, not a crime under any law.

Article III: Cheney's been rattling his saber at Iran. It may be foreign policy by sledgehammer rather than Xacto knife, but there's no law against this either.

So although I would really, really like to see Cheney removed from office, Kucinich's articles of impeachment don't contain any actual crimes for which he could be tried. Not that that's stopped impeachment proceedings before, but there was a better case against Clinton, because he actually testified under oath. We have some truly reprehensible people leading our country, and they should be stopped before they get us into even more trouble, but unfortunately this isn't going to do it.

The requirements for impeachment are not criminal. Impeachment was designed as a way to prosecute political crimes, incompetence and unethical leaders. Criminality is most certainly grounds for impeachment, but it is not required. The Federalist Papers list a number of reasons to impeach a President, included (#10) is the replacement of skilled civil servants with incompetent or corrupt ones (Ahem, "Heckuva job Brownie!" or Al "I don't recall" Gonzales). Violating the oath of office is exactly why you impeach someone. Impeachment is a political trial, not a criminal one, you're arguments have no weight.

The idea that there was a better case against Clinton is ludicrous. The Clinton impeachment was a setup funded and run entirely by dedicated professional political operatives. After 10 years of hounding the Clinton's, the best they could get was a married man lying about cheating on his wife? Whitewater, nothing, Sock's the cat's Christmas list, nothing, Travelgate, nothing, sexual harassment, nothing. The GOP congress issued over 1100 subpoenas during the Clinton administration and Clinton respected Congress' role, even allowing for a Special Prosecutor. The Bush administrations comical claims of executive privilege and the fact that Karl Rove is a walking Hatch Act violation who had a hand in leaking classified intelligence information for political purposes are grounds enough.

You are right that Kucinich won't get the job done though. This is par for the course for Kucinich, that's why I've got my bets on Waxman and Conyers in the House and Leahy in the Senate. Their investigations should provide all the proof needed for both political and criminal prosecution.

Please support H Res 333, the articles of impeachment of Vice President R. Cheney submitted by Congressman D. Kucinich, in the most vigorous terms possible. The invasion of Iraq was an international crime, and I do not need to describe to you the colossal human, economic, and social costs that have already accrued, and that will increase in the future with the inevitable multi-faceted blowback that will result.

Please make this your top priority and do everything in your power to recruit your colleagues in its support, and to ensure the successful impeachment of Mr Cheney.

First, given that you dudes (i.e. the US) planned, financed and partially executed the overthrow of the first ever(!) democratically elected president in the entire third world, and that that happened to be Iran, their hostility is more than understandeable, isn't it? The direct result of the forceful institution of the Sha regime was, of course, the islamic revolution. You made your bed, now lie in it.

Two, nuclear infrastructure is no threat to the USA. Even a working nuke isn't. You still need delivery vehicles. As for that, I think the ratio of USA to Iran is roughly 20,000:0

Finally, the position in the paper I read was "Cheney lied and betrayed the public while holding an office where he swore an oath to protect and serve that same public". Iraq/Iran is merely what he lied about.

I didn't say their hostility isn't understandable, or justified, or intense. It's all three. I said I can't how understand Cheney's actions could have made it worse. I read the paper too. My point is that I'm unconvinced that he has in fact lied or betrayed the public in re Article III.

Pahlavi was later. Have you been brain-washed so much you can't even check Wikipedia?

In 1951, a nationalist politician, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh rose to prominence in Iran and was elected Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, Mossadegh became enormously popular in Iran by nationalizing the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later British Petroleum, BP) which controlled the country's oil reserves. In response, Britain embargoed Iranian oil and began plotting to depose Mossadegh. Members of the British Intelligence Service invited the United States to join them, convincing U.S. President Eisenhower that Mossadegh was reliant on the Tudeh (Communist) Party to stay in power. In 1953, President Eisenhower authorized Operation Ajax, and the CIA took the lead in overthrowing Mossadegh and supporting a U.S.-friendly monarch; and for which the U.S. Government apologized in 2000.

What I said perfectly fits with the Wikipedia entry, including that we assisted the Shah in stopping Soviet expansion, in this case through the banned Tudeh communist party. Pahlavi approved Mossadegh twice, but had to get rid of him once he gai

I think what it means is that Iran poses no threat enough to justify another preemptive war, not even a "diplomatic war", and that is true. Iran is no imminent threat to the U.S. territorial sovereign and, while being a threat to Israel (as every other country surrounding that territory), U.S. preemptive armed involvement there would be another catastrophe, possibly much worse than Iraq.

Anyone that could imagine (or fabricate) Iran (or Iraq, as it was being claimed as the reason for Gulf War II) attackin

There's a difference between "they pose a threat" and "they are threatening us." In the latter, anyone can threaten us -- whether they can do anything about it (or even plan to) is another issue. Heck, given the current climate of the world, we'd be bombing everyone if we based it on who spoke ill of the United States.

Ahmadinejad is a nut, and perhaps a dangerous one. But so is Kim Jong Il, I'd argue moreso. So is China. But we can't win those, so we've looked the other way. (Of course, given what we've seen in Iraq, I doubt we could win in Iran, either.) This is not the Iranian government posing an immediate and direct threat to the U.S. -- this is the current administration's dislike for radical Islam. I'm not too fond of the radical part myself, but we can't go around blowing up everyone who may one day pose a threat.

The American people get this (more than the White House originally gave them credit for), and therefore lies must be told to make the threat seem more imminent than it is. The first three articles of impeachment spell out this tactic fairly clearly, and the only reason the fourth doesn't do as well is because the Iran issue hasn't been around as long. Give it a year or two, and more lies will be told about them. Sadly, I think all it takes is one level of lies, and many Americans (due to media fatigue) seem to just buy it.

I don't doubt that Ahmadinejad is a bad guy. Nor did I doubt that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. But if we look the other way on North Korea, China, Sudan, and others while cutting a path through the Middle East, it looks more like either religious or oil-based profiling than it does like policing to me.

if you get down to the bottom, there are all the bits about how he violated international law, and the bit in article III section 4 where Kucinich quotes the constitution

`This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land.'

While there is certainly some (a lot) of political posturing going on here, the points of the articles are valid, and

Look, it's not World War II. It's also not the American Revolution, and it's not the Star Wars Trilogy. The mess we find ourselves in in Iraq is more like France's involvement in Algeria, or in Indochina, or our own involvement there. It's not an honorable thing, it's not an admirable thing, and it's one of the worst foreign policy decisions ever, right up there with Operation Ajax and the Kirkpatrick Doctrine. We're not fighting Hitler or Sauron, George Bush isn't Winston Churchill or Aragorn or Feric Jaggar, or whatever your preferred fantasy trope is. This was a stupid mess, and it cannot be made better. Our options are (a) leave, and watch the region descend into utter chaos and barbarism, (b) keep doing what we're doing until the Republicans are safely out of office and the disaster can be blamed on the Democrats, then watch the region descend into utter chaos and barbarism, and (c) roll through Iraq like the Ottoman Turks, the Roman Legions, the Golden Horde, the Germans or any other empire-builder of yore, and exact disproportionate revenge on random civilians for any act of defiance, causing them to fear us more than they fear the insurgents. (I provide option (c) only for completeness; if you find it appealing, please seek help.)

Occupying a large country and pretending that we're not invaders is a stupid idea. It was a stupid idea before it was executed, and it's a stupid idea now. No good will come of it, no matter how much better you feel when you blame the person who points out that it was a stupid idea.